A Day in The Life

This is Ma

Sunday Afternoon

Good bell choir rehearsal, I was told I looked like a Creamcicle in my orange sweater.  Bella came by later and said I looked like orange sherbert.  Interesting, I went to the grocery store and bought some ice cream.

Friday in the home office

I’m sitting here with one foot out the door for one project and one foot in the door of the next.  I’m looking at comps from the new gig and answering questions about restricted access to data for the old.  Drum lessons in the afternoon, Bella here in the evening, Ma comes by tomorrow.  Bell Choir rehearsal on Sunday.  A busy weekend for sure

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (via Ray Radlein)

This is a test to see the uploading of a photo.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, “Transforming Problems into Happiness”

Every time a problem arises, the essential thing is to immediately become aware that the problem comes from our selfish mind, that it is created by self-cherishing thoughts. As long as you put the blame outside yourself, there can be no happiness.

Bruce Lee Wisdom

1. What are you really thinking about today?

“As you think, so shall you become.”

Perhaps the most basic statement of how we work. Think about what you are thinking today. What do those thoughts say about you? About your life? And how well do they really match your plans for your life and your image of yourself?

It’s easy to forget abut this simple statement in everyday life. It’s easy to be quite incongruent with what you think on an ordinary day compared to how you view yourself and your goals.

2. Simplify.

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”

If you want to improve your life then it’s tempting to want to add more. One problem with this may be that you don’t really have the time or energy to do more though. And so your efforts to improve become short-lived.

Adding more and more just creates more stress and anxiety. Removing clutter and activities, tasks and thoughts that are not so important frees up time and energy for you to do more of what you really want to do. And as the clutter in your outer world decreases the clutter in your inner world also has a tendency to decrease. This has the added benefit of making it easier to actually enjoy whatever you are doing even more while you are doing it.

Adding more thoughts and thinking things over for the 111:th time may create a sense of security. It’s also a good way to procrastinate and to avoid taking that leap you know you should take. And the more you think, the harder it gets to act. Perhaps because you want to keep that comforting sense of security and avoid the risk of wrecking that feeling.

Thinking has its place. It can help you plan a somewhat realistic route to your goal and help you avoid future pitfalls. Overthinking is however just a habit that will help you waste a lot of time. It’s more useful to replace that habit with the habit of just doing it.

3. Learn about yourself in interactions.

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

The one person that is the hardest to get to really know may be yourself. Studying yourself while you are alone may result in some insights. But it’s also likely to produce a lot of made up thought loops and doubts in your mind. A good way to really learn more about yourself is study yourself in interactions with other people. How people react and act in these interaction can over time teach you a lot. And what you think and how you react can perhaps teach you even more.

What you see, feel and hear in other people may be a reflection of you. The things you learn by thinking this way may not always be pleasant, but they can be enlightening. They help you to see yourself and also how you may be fooling yourself. And these powerful insights can be very valuable for your personal growth. So, in interactions with others, try asking yourself: what is reflected?

4. Do not divide.

“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”

This is a very useful and powerful thought. It is also one that obviously is hard to live by. Why? I believe it’s because the ego loves to divide and find ways to “add more” to itself. It want’s to feel better than someone else. Or more clever. Or prettier. Or cooler. Or wiser.

How can you overcome this way of thinking and feeling?

To me it seems to boil down to not identifying so much with your thoughts or feelings. That doesn’t mean that you stop thinking or feeling. It just means that you realize – and remember in your everyday life – that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through you.

You are not them though.

You are the consciousness observing them.

When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts and feelings instead of the other way around. It also enables you to not take your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when you feel that your ego is acting out. When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a need to divide your world and a search for conflicts.

5. Avoid a dependency on validation from others.

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”

“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”

The ego wants to add because it thinks it’s not enough. One way of doing that is by craving validation from others. We want to feel smart, pretty, successful and so on. And the validation makes you feel good for a while. But soon you need a new fix.

And the problem with being dependent on validation from other people is that you let other people control how you feel. This creates a rollercoaster of emotion in your life.

To find more emotional stability and to take control of how you feel you need to get your validation from to a more consistent source. Yourself. You can replace the expectations and validation of others by setting your own expectations and by validating yourself.

And so you validate yourself by thinking about how awesome you are. You don’t sell yourself short. You appreciate how far you have come and the positive things you have done. You appreciate your own value in the world. You set goals and you achieve those goals. This builds confidence in yourself and in your abilities. These things will help you to build a habit of inner validation.

Now, showing off. Why do we do that? To get validation from others. However, this need for validation often shines through and that is why a thing like bragging seldom works. Instead of seeing the cool and successful person you are trying to project people just see the insecure and needy person looking for validation. And your bragging falls flat.

6. Be proactive.

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”

It’s easy to get locked into a reactive mindset. You just follow along with whatever is happening. You do what the people around you do. You react to whatever is going on.

And so you get lost in your circumstances. This way of thinking doesn’t feel too good. You tend to feel powerless and like you are just drifting along.

A more useful and pleasurable way of living is to be proactive. As Bruce says: to create opportunities despite the circumstances around you. This feels better and provides better results. But on the other hand it’s also more difficult. It’s easier to just drift along in the reactive stream of life. And if you want to be proactive then you may have to take the lead quite often. And that can be scary.

Still, living proactively is so much more rewarding and exciting.

7. Be you.

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”

Just being yourself is a hard thing to do. You may do it sometimes. And other times you may forget or fall back into old thought patterns. Or you may imitate someone else.

And that comes through too. And it may work.

But I believe that being the real you will work better. Because there the genuine you is shining through. Without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness. It’s you to 100%. It’s you with not only your words but you with your voice tonality and body language – which some say is over 90% of communication - on the same wavelength as your words. It’s you coming through on all channels of communication.

So I’m not saying: “yeah man, you should just be yourself because it’s the right thing to do etc.” I’m saying that I think being your authentic self – the one where you do little dividing, the one that needs little validation from others, the one where your ego is not running the show and trying to get something from someone – will give you better results and more satisfaction in your day to day life because you are in alignment with yourself. And because people really like genuine and people really like authenticity.

Me and My Bud

Mark: hey man
Mark: you get the foo
Matt: you mean the bar?
Mark: nah
Mark: fighters
Matt: not really
Mark: how come?
Matt: nothing happens
Matt: falls flat
Matt: strange
Mark: what?
Mark: what falls flat
Matt: the music
Mark: can you see the page?
Matt: the page?
Mark: don’t like the tunes, you mean?
Mark: too raucous for you
Matt: its not that i don’t like it
Mark: rowdy
Mark: screamin’
Mark: thumpin
Matt: i know
Mark: rockin’ out
Matt: i guess it seems contrived
Matt: he was a drummer
Matt: drummers are not front men
Matt: and he does commercials
Matt: or guest appearances on food network
Mark: lol
Matt: that’s not rock
Mark: even rockers gotta eat, man
Mark: imagine having to eat food cooked in a microwave everyday
Mark: all year
Mark: every year
Matt: i bet he’s got a pretty big nest egg
Mark: even thanksgiving dinner
Mark: i’m sure he’s loaded
Matt: who does that
Matt: you ever see the riders these guys carry
Mark: but he’s singing and playing the drums at the mean fiddler
Mark: which is awesome
Mark: and it ROCKS!
Mark: give it to hank
Matt: 17 whole chickens with pierier water
Mark: he’ll appreciate it, i bet
Matt: naaaa
Matt: i did get him the ten concert shirts
Matt: he’s wearing sid vicious right now
Matt: HUGE HIT
Matt: HUGE
Matt: you did well for me man, thanks again
Matt: i got eight of them
Matt: not ten
Matt: doors, sid, two queen, jimi, gnr, ramones and hank williams
Mark: lol
Mark: that is so cool
Mark: so cool
Mark: i love it
Mark: now, give him the foo
Matt: he really dug it
Matt: kept shaking his head saying, this is really cool
Mark: that’s how i felt when my mom said she’d buy me the zoso shirt
Mark: i was so pumped and dumbfounded
Matt: yup
Mark: well, awesome
Mark: :)
Mark: hank rules
Mark: do you have some ramones?
Matt: of course
Matt: do i have ramones
Matt: what a question
Mark: sorry
Matt: just call me dee dee
Mark: nice
Matt: great stuff
Matt: needles and pins?
Matt: ever hear them do that?
Matt: great version
Mark: i think i have
Mark: i’ll dig the stuff out and check and listen
Mark: :)
Matt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__F5bfTJlfY
Mark: i can only listen to so much of the ramones
Matt: i had to run away, yeah
Matt: still it begins
Matt: needles and pins
Matt: because of all my pride
Matt: the tears i got to hide
Matt: i thought i was smart
Matt: i stole her heart
Matt: perfect tune
Matt: i love the key change
Matt: so amazing
Mark: you listen to band of horses?
Mark: yeah you did
Mark: nevermind
Matt: non stop
Matt: for about a week
Mark: i’m still hung-up on Marry Song
Matt: then i listened to 4 springsteen records when i got to jersey and driving around
Matt: started with wild and the innocent and worked my way through to the rising
Matt: not to sound like a fem, but it makes me cry - i have to hide it from the kids
Matt: ridiculuous
Mark: lol
Matt: “Needles and Pins” is a song by Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono, originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon. Other hit versions of the song were recorded by The Searchers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Stevie Nicks and by the Ramones.
Mark: the older i get, the easier it is to get choked up
Matt: Jack and Sonny
Matt: i had no idea
Mark: gotta wipe my eyes all too often
Matt: word
Mark: overwhelming joy, mostly
Mark: a real connection with the meta
Matt: i’m not sure i can tell the difference anymore
Matt: joy, saddness, fear, elation
Mark: well, joy and elation make you cry
Matt: for sure
Mark: and saddness and fear usually make you angry or despondant
Matt: i guess what i’m saying now, is that the ability to peg it to something has become irrelevant
Matt: it just is
Mark: nah
Mark: it’s true that it just is
Matt: word
Mark: but being able to tell the difference and feeling all of it to the fullest is the magic of life
Matt: henry just landed a big role in a gig at school doing higher and higer
Mark: the magic of the form
Matt: i guess that’s what i mean
Matt: feeling all of it without labeling it
Matt: the tears are magic
Matt: and the springsteen tears are equally about not being there as they are of driving across the state line one more time with the kids in tow
Mark: fair enough, a label is unnecessary
Matt: the moment
Mark: the moment
Mark: so, awesome for hank
Matt: big number
Mark: higher and higher, is that a musical
Matt: no an old jackie wilson tune
Mark: of bee gees hits
Mark: no elo
Matt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL2_zhLs_T4
Matt: big number - lots of dancers
Matt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtiNzci1Wc&feature=related
Mark: ahh, yeah
Mark: that one
Mark: Livin’ Thing, by ELO
Mark: is what i was hearing
Matt: right
Matt: i was listening to some elo on wolfgang
Mark: wolfgang
Mark: nice
Matt: ec2 is even cooler
Mark: damon and i argued about who was better, the beatles or led zeppelin
Mark: guess which i was arguing for
Matt: zoso
Mark: lol
Mark: did i tell you?
Matt: what does that stand for
Mark: or because of the shirt?
Matt: shirt
Mark: :)
Mark: he’s sharing “Back to the Egg”
Mark: you dig that record?
Matt: that’s a good version of comfortably numb
Matt: i don’t know back to the egg
Matt: but i dig the wing
Mark: back to the egg, baby
Mark: i’ll get it to you
Mark: if it’s not on lalal
Mark: now you’re gonna make me check
Matt: kids are here - bella and i are grooving to lenka
Matt: hank has got jackie wilson cranking
Matt: guitar just got put away
Matt: i bought a couple of egg shakers
Matt: they are great
Mark: nice
Mark: egg shakers are great
Mark: nice way to be a part of the tunes
Matt: i need some lessons
Matt: lots of paul on lalal
Matt: as is egg
Mark: good, listen to egg
Matt: lots of stuff in my lala q
Matt: Bon Iver?
Matt: kind of cool
Mark: Bon Iver?
Mark: why have I heard that?
Matt: yeah - i heard them on npr
Matt: interesting
Matt: single guy - acoustic guitar, made a record in a cabin in wisconsin
Mark: right
Matt: long drive at night by yourself music
Mark: read about it in paste
Matt: right
Mark: lala?
Matt: yaya
Matt: i had to fill up my lala account again
Mark: nice
Mark: i’ll listen to it
Mark: i love lala
Mark: when’s iphone lala coming?
Matt: no idea - i just did a google search for that recently
Matt: it was mentioned, but nothing yet
Matt: remember dars gig this weekend in baltimore
Matt: her and the dead cover band
Mark: which night?
Matt: sat
Mark: the 10th?
Matt: yup
Mark: lol
Matt: she goes on first
Mark: nice
Mark: where?
Matt: 8x10 
Matt: federal hill
Matt: nice place - small
Mark: federal hill
Matt: mostly a room for tunes
Mark: ha
Mark: i know 8x10 
Mark: been there
Mark: saw Leftover Salmon
Matt: nice
Mark: saw Lake Trout
Mark: saw Moon Boot Lover
Matt: fried banana daqs?
Mark: saw Solar Circus
Matt: smelly blankets on the dog
Matt: enjoy the show
Matt: i want my money back
Mark: pay me
Mark: Chris is playing Bertha’s in Fells Point on Saturday
Matt: awesome - i’ll be seeing you, i have a feeling
Matt: the draw to the city is strong, young jedi

Went to chuch today

Interesting - when you look at the word beat itudes - Hey, Jack Kerouac

Blessed are the poor in spirit….